Makeshift Unorthodox Costume (In Progress)

[Cyclops942]

Got it… I need to admire this from a distance, because I am almost GUARANTEED to hurt myself with it.

I appreciate the warning, and I look forward to seeing your videos when you feel like sharing them.

[SirLiftaLot]

Got it… I need to admire this from a distance, because I am almost GUARANTEED to hurt myself with it.

I appreciate the warning, and I look forward to seeing your videos when you feel like sharing them.

I have zero idea how to use a whip, so it will be a leaning experience. But with full-body protection, it should be quite fun.

[janx]

I have zero idea how to use a whip, so it will be a leaning experience. But with full-body protection, it should be quite fun.

There's probably videos   Back in my day, we had to make a whip and then figure it out...but nobody lost an eye

Truth be told, using it like a bull whip would probably wreck it pretty quick.  Might be healthier to think of it like a twirling streamer instead, which also makes sense as it is a light show device.

Which gives me an idea...

Have you ever seen one of those wooden snakes they make in craft markets.  Basically a dowel, with cuts on opposing sides so it squiggles snakelike.

Imagine cutting a length of pipe that way (PVC, polycarbonate?).  Then run a flexible LED strip up the center.  Perhaps double sided (or fold it back on itself at the tip).  If it's long enough it will flex and undulate and you'll have control from the hilt.  As individual LEDs it wouldn't look like a saber whip (solid light worm), but could look cool.

[mrg149]

Nobody lost an eye said the man pictured with dark glasses…What is he REALLY trying to hide!?! Ask yourself this question.

[Cyclops942]

Nobody lost an eye said the man pictured with dark glasses…What is he REALLY trying to hide!?! Ask yourself this question.

Maybe… the fact that somebody lost BOTH eyes?

[SirLiftaLot]

Working on making a smaller, lighter-weight pair of saberchucks using MHSv1 parts and 250 lumen flashlights sitting into the blades within the hilt. Only have enough parts to complete one of the sides, but initial testing seems promising. These things move much faster and more akin to standard nunchucks than the saberchucks I made using my standard hilts.

TEST VIDEO:
https://i.imgur.com/0uAkqkP.mp4

[janx]

Working on making a smaller, lighter-weight pair of saberchucks using MHSv1 parts and 250 lumen flashlights sitting into the blades within the hilt. Only have enough parts to complete one of the sides, but initial testing seems promising. These things move much faster and more akin to standard nunchucks than the saberchucks I made using my standard hilts.

TEST VIDEO:
https://i.imgur.com/0uAkqkP.mp4

Though I just watched a Shadiversity video debunking nunchuks as weapons the other day, I want to see these work. 

[SirLiftaLot]

Ok. I LOVE Shad (I was actually watching his most recent video at the time I saw your comment!), and he has some solid points.

First, let me explain my background. I practiced Taekwondo (specifically Ko Am Mu Do) for close to a decade, although I am a little rusty with several years away from formal training. I have a black belt certified by Kukkiwon World Taekwondo Headquarters (although my financial situation at the time prevented me from testing for second dan), and, in my youth, I competed, and placed in, (mostly in traditional forms, but also some point sparring) in the Sunshine State Games and U.S. Open World Martial Arts Championships. I've used bo staffs and nunchucks for probably closer to 10 years than 5.

Nunchucks are objectively NOT a great weapon compared to even much simpler and more readily available options. If you give me the option of having a 4' or taller stick/staff/cane/walking-stick, I'll take that in a heartbeat.

I'll attempt to list out some pros and cons of nunchucks vs various sticks, addressing one point and talking about if I view it as a pro or a con:

Point 1: essentially "folds" in half, making it more concealable and portable.

Response: yes, this is true, but in modern times, concealing nunchucks is often considered to be concealing a weapon. If you have a concealed carry permit, a firearm is pretty much going to be a much more effective self defense tool, no doubt. Even a collapsible baton is likely better as I'll explain soon. If you have a walking stick or cane, you don't even need to conceal it, and it's generally allowed everywhere without being considered a weapon. People may consider you a little bit eccentric though.

Verdict: if nunchucks are legally classified as concealed weapons, there are much better options with that same level of legality. Plus a walking staff doesn't need to be concealed.

Point 2: it moves faster due to the chain.

Response: that depends. If you're swinging it like you'd swing a stick, then meh. The "advantage" is that you can rely on more rapid movements of the arm/wrist to flick the nunchuck that you can't do with a stick. As Shad explained, when you strike with a nunchuck, you lose at least some follow-through momentum (think what you'd have with a baseball bat), since the nunchuck will deflect off the object as opposed to allowing your momentum and force to carry through it. You're losing that follow through power. What the real advantage of the nunchuck is here is the unpredictability, especially to someone who isn't trained to defend against it. I knife or stick typically doesn't switch hands very quickly, while nunchucks, despite being a one-handed weapon, lend themselves quite well to switching hands and striking from unpredictable angles, with feints possible from one hand while striking with the other.

In short, nunchucks lose that follow-through power in exchange for more unpredictability in terms of offensive options. Not to mention there is always that inherent unpredictability of where the nunchuck will bounce after striking a moving target. This, however, is not the good uncertainty, but the bad one for the wielder, as it can throw off your timing and positioning for subsequent strikes, or even hit your own arm.

That said, nunchucks have essentially ZERO defensive capability. Not that a short knife has much more defensive potential, but it has some. You can't block anything with a nunchuck unless you're in a Bruce Lee movie or an actual Jedi. You only option to defend with nunchucks is to strike them before they can strike you, or use rapid and unpredictable movements to keep an opponent at bay and from striking you. But give them a weapon with longer reach than you and you're SOL, since you have no way to defend against their attacks except moving out of the way.

A jo or bo staff (or a long cane or walking stick) would serve much better for practical defensive use. Longer range for striking, more follow-through power, and MUCH more defensive potential.

Verdict: you're losing a lot of power and defensive potential to gain some unpredictability in striking options.

ALL OF THAT SAID, just as Shad said that, in a fantasy setting, the double-sided-sword-staff (or saberstaff) was surprisingly effective, I'd wager that saber-chucks would also serve a pretty nifty niche in a fantasy setting.

As explained above, nunchucks lose some follow-through power due to the chain, but they pick up some nice movement options for rapid and unpredictable striking angles. With a blunt object (nunchucks) that loss of force is a severe hinderance, as blunt objects rely essentially exclusively on power generation and transfer of said power into what they hit. Bladed nunchucks (sword-chucks?) would be hindered less, but would still be wildly impractical, as proper edge alignment with nunchucks would be a disaster. But with saber-chucks, you have not "edge" to worry about, and if your saber blade comes in contact with something, even with little force behind it, it's going to cut right through it. Unless it strikes a lightsaber resistant blade/material or another lightsaber, but if we're talking about a successful hit doing massive damage, you don't need some insanely brutally powerful strikes. See Dooku's fencing style saber combat for reference. He's not muscling insanely powerful strikes, because a lightsaber doesn't need to do that to inflict massive damage.

Saber-chucks can also, in-universe, still likely deflect blaster bolts successfully. They become decent hyper-offensive option for athletic force users in-universe I'd wager. You still lose a fair bit of range compared to a standard saber, or even compared to dual shoto sabers. And you still have no defensive potential against an opposing lightsaber. But I have a potential solution for a few of these remaining problems:

BESKAR GAUNTLETS!

As described above, the primary deficiencies (besides range) of saber-chucks is no defensive options to block, and the potential for deflected strikes to bounce back and chop off your own hand/arm. What mitigates both of these problems? Beskar guantlets like Mando wears. In his fight against Ahsoka, we see him block multiple forceful strikes from Ahskoka's sabers. So wearing Beskar gauntlets would both protect saber-chuck wielders from errant deflections severing their own limbs, and also provide them with options to block opponent's saber strikes, perhaps with the off-hand that isn't holding the nunchucks.

Summary of how saber-chucks would work in-universe:

1: Lack of power transfer from nunchucks due to the chain is mitigated with lightsaber blades. You don't need blunt-weapon levels of power when striking when you have laser blades that cut through most things like butter

2: lack of defensive potential and risk to the user's hands/arms is mitigated by wearing Beskar gauntlets.

And these also work nicely in-universe for a light/grey force user. You can simply turn off the blades and use the hilts as standard short nunchucks for less-lethal options.

[Cyclops942]

Thanks for the write-up, and thanks for laying out your qualifications to speak on the matter.

[janx]

Thanks for the write-up, and thanks for laying out your qualifications to speak on the matter.

pretty much summed up what Shad said in an hour and a half (he over did it on the 3rd video).  And you covered what I figured would make saberchuks fun anyway.

For a SW cosplay, your chucks are going to nail the mission, impressing people.

[SirLiftaLot]

pretty much summed up what Shad said in an hour and a half (he over did it on the 3rd video).  And you covered what I figured would make saberchuks fun anyway.

For a SW cosplay, your chucks are going to nail the mission, impressing people.

Thanks. I think after a little while Shad just wanted to capitalize on the memes and views beating a dead horse generated for his channel. Which good for him, if you can monetize entertaining people while providing some useful information, more power to you.

As for the execution of the saber-chucks, there's surprisingly more to getting it right than I initially would have thought.

From a nice-looking pair on the market like these, the obvious problem is you can't grab the blades from an in-universe perspective:


To just adding long blades to the end of standard hilt/nunchuck length resulting in the blades hitting the body in standard nunchuck movements as seen here in a video where someone added lightsaber blades to the end of Bruce Lee's nunchucks (around the 18-20 second mark or so is one example of this):

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JeYEmrNVlw&amp;t=19s" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JeYEmrNVlw&amp;t=19s</a>

So the hilt has to be long enough to grab and hold reliably between transitions and switches, and also long enough to tuck under the arm, but not so long that it makes the nunchucks themselves too long, or requires the use of tiny blades to achieve a reasonable overall length. So there's a fairly delicate balance of blade and hilt length to best mimic standard nunchucks in terms of functionality. You can have long hilts and blades, but it sacrifices some mobility options, and you can have tiny blades, but it cuts down on visual appeal. Not to mention using standard full-size hilts and electronics can be pretty heavy, which also slows down speed, particularly when paired with longer overall lengths.

So it's a work in progress to try to fine-tune various aspects of the design. What I'm currently going for should do the trick well, but the only negative I see so far is no super easy/fast way to quickly turn on the light in the blades, but if that's the trade-off for being able to do some faster and more complex demonstrations with them, that's coo.

[Cyclops942]

Would you want a tailcap-clicky light, or a head-twist switch for the light source?

For a 300-lumen light source that runs on a 1xAA cell and has a tailcap-clicky switch, and weighs 2.12 oz, you can look at this light.

[SirLiftaLot]

Would you want a tailcap-clicky light, or a head-twist switch for the light source?

For a 300-lumen light source that runs on a 1xAA cell and has a tailcap-clicky switch, and weighs 2.12 oz, you can look at this light.

Thanks for the link.I definitely wouldn't want a head-twist, since I'm putting the flashlight a few inches into the blade, which is hidden by the emitter. I'm using tailcap-click ones now, but they're a bit recessed into the hilts, so what I have to do is sort of push the chain at the right angle to click the button. It really only takes a few seconds, but it's not as quick as your standard saber buttons on the side of the hilt.

I'm actually running these 250 lumen rechargeable lights now:

https://www.amazon.com/Streamlight-66608-Flashlight-Micro-Stream/dp/B07DLZXZV1

I tried going down to listed 150 lumen (from a AAA battery), which was really cheap ($10 for 2), and its not bad since the blades are so short, but there's a big increase in brightness to the 250 rechargeable light mentioned above:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F29YC8R/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just ordered, but have not yet received, an even smaller 650 lumen rechargeable light, but after 90 seconds on the highest mode, it drops down to 100 lumens to keep it from overheating. Don't want it melting itself and the blade I suppose. But for those 90 seconds, it should be INSANELY bright, which would make for some very cool brief demonstrations, if not prolonged use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CP6CFX9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But the 250 lumen ones I have don't seem to have a step-down with the 250 setting, so I'd imagine those would be the standard ones for prolonged cosplay use.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CP6CFX9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The 250 lumen light with my Ripper Clone spearhead is INSANELY bright though. To the point of actually starting to hurt the eyes if you look at the tip/top of the spearhead for too long. So the 650 in that would probably be some Biblical-level flaming sword that can't even be directly looked at haha.

[MercuryKungFu]

The SOG Dark Energy DE-06 might quite be the best handheld led, if you can find one. The Gerber Cortex is a very durable light though not quite as bright as the SOG lights. They both have strobe mode, low light mode, and bright light mode, if you can find one. Good luck.

[SirLiftaLot]

The SOG Dark Energy DE-06 might quite be the best handheld led, if you can find one. The Gerber Cortex is a very durable light though not quite as bright as the SOG lights. They both have strobe mode, low light mode, and bright light mode, if you can find one. Good luck.

Thanks for the recommendations, but $80+ is too rich for my blood for this application. I also want to keep the lights as small as possible for this application, both in terms of diameter (to allow it to fit inside the blade) and length (to keep the overall length needed for the hilts down).

I can pick up a core from other guys for $30 that has RGB colors and cool effects, but it's over 7 inches long (and I've yet to see anyone make a standard hilt shorter than ~8"), while right now, since my lights sit into the blades, not juts up against them, my hilts for the saber-chucks are a good bit shorter, at just under 5.5" from the tip of the emitter to the portion where the chain begins. Since a standard core needs probably 2" for the emitter to hold the blade, we're looking at over 9" long hilts, which is probably a good 4" longer than my current hilts from a functional perspective. And I'm already using pretty short blades, so I'd pretty much have to increase the length of the overall chucks by a good bit to use those cores. Plus they're a bit heavier than small flashlights as well.

I juts got my 650 lumen mini-light, so once it's charged I'll see how bright it is. This one only stays that bright for 90 seconds, so I guess if it's THAT insanely bright, maybe I'll hace to consider something that can maintain that level of brightness. But considering my blades are only ~6-8" or so pat the emitter, it doesn't take a ton of light to make them look pretty bright and uniform, as opposed to trying to evenly light a 36" blade.